Synopsis: Lab coat and Stig meet and walk the line between order and chaos.

PARK AND RECREATION

"—minutes ago, but there was this old woman with a walker…" "Really not my problem." "Don't 'sir' me, you saw me coming a mile away!" "Look, once I put the ticket through the system, there's nothing I can do about it." "Yeah, and don't give me that story, either…"

The argument has been dragging on for a good minute by now, while the nearby meter continues helpfully blinking 'EXPIRED'. At this point, it's more a matter of principle than anything else; Simon has more or less resigned himself to the bike cop's stonewalling, wandering over and feeding in some spare change as he talks. Bike cop, seriously. It's a step up from mall cop, but what isn't, really?

Do you know what sexy sounds like? You are about to! There is the roar of the most sexy sound ever, a custom Firebrand bike. Mmmm.. women quiver and men long. That motorcycle comes up rather fast and drifts perfectly into the place. With all the leathers on, the gender of the rider isn't really known. Robbie slides her long legs off the bike to come and put money in the parking meter. It is here that she gets the attention of the argument. Robbie moves easily over to them to watch with her visor helmet shield still down.

With the meter taken care of - for another hour or two, anyway - Simon picks up the ticket, piles a couple twenties on top of it and promptly hands it back to the dude in the bicycle shorts. One of the advantages of patching up people's innards for a living: it pays pretty well. Only when he turns back around again does he catch sight of the new arrival, glancing up and down for a moment. "Rinzler? Since when did they let you out of the jug?"

Robbie turns to look behind her and then moves to take her helmet off. The long flow of brown-black hair falls around her features as she laughs in a hearty manner. "Oh about two this morning." She looks towards the police officer before smiling back towards Simon. "Parking is a bitch in the city, isn't it?"

True to form, the bike cop is ignoring all this, having already taken off down the block to attend to the next blinking 'EXPIRED' sign. And get shouted at by an old woman with a walker. "Hey, I'm eighty years old here, you could give me another minute!" And that's probably how the rest of his day will go.

Meanwhile, Simon nods to Robbie, leaning back against the side of his trunk, oblivious for the moment to the heat coming off of it in shimmering waves. "This isn't even the worst of it— a couple days ago, I had to drive around for half an hour just to find a spot five blocks away." He peers over at her ride, but doesn't offer any comment on it. Not directly, anyway: "So what'd they haul you in for? Total another semi?"

Robbie brushes her hair out of her face and unzips the heavy coat around her shoulders. There is a laugh. "Maybe you need a bike. I happen to know the owner that makes Firebrand bikes." She cocks her hip to set her helmet upon it. "You get in and out of traffic easier on it." Then she smiles. "Well actually, I was last in for breaking and entering. I mean I really wanted to see what was in the playboy mansion." There is a pause. "You aren't missing anything."

Simon makes a face, his mood briefly souring again - "You get run over by traffic easier, I've seen a couple of nasty wipeouts" - but one of the requirements of the job is to let go of it once it's done. "And you're lying," he continues, deadpan. "First, any place big enough to be a 'mansion,' you're gonna be missing something. Second, wouldn't they just let you through the front door?" That was a line, wasn't it? It probably was.

Robbie laughs. "Okay. I probably missed the morals there. Next time I'm partying with Hugh, I'll look for them." Robbie blinks a few times at the line and chuckles. "Well damn, you are good at this. You must be a right lie detector. Is that what you do for a living? Sense who lies and who doesn't?" She looks just a bit past him to see how the elderly lady got handled before allowing her eyes to fall back upon his. Then finally, to check out his ride.

Off in the distance, Walker Lady is still arguing, and loudly too. Because she has more time to kill, or less money to throw at the parking ticket and make it go away? A little from column A, a little from column B…

Oh, and now the conversation's gone from random small talk to topical small talk. Huh. "Yup, that's me," Simon replies, "I can see right through you." Which is sort of true. "Little black circles floating around your head whenever you lie." Which is not. "What about you? Walk through walls? That must be how you got out this morning, they wouldn't just let you out."

"Oh well either I wasn't in jail.." Which is true. "Or I know how to disassemble locks." Which is also true. There is a look of humor to her features. "Well I do believe you offered to buy me a drink of some sort." Her eyes lift to above her head for those black dots. "So, you got yourself some powers to see right through me, hmm? I'm glad it's only for lying, because I'm not wearing much more than what you see."

Simon doesn't bother to look up, even to maintain the earlier story— but on the other hand, when a leather biker chick invites you to buy her a drink, do you say no? Well, maybe if she's built like a linebacker. "There's a place down the block, I think— two, actually, but the other one's a poor man's Hooters. Three if you count the paparazzi magnet," he adds, gesturing toward the Millions of Milkshakes sign across the street.

Robbie looks towards the milkshake place and makes a face. "Paparazzi. Oh God, Dad would love that." She laughs and then moves forwards to try and wrap an arm through his. "I'm Robbie Connors. You have a name to go with all those rippling muscles?"

"Simon," the alleged hunk introduces himself. The proffered arm is accepted without hesitation, there being no existing wife/mistress/girlfriend to complicate the issue. "I take it daddy would love the dive bar about as much? I haven't actually gone inside before, but it looks like a low-rent type of place."

Robbie laughs. "I quit caring what Daddy thought when I was five. You want to be all over the pages with me, we can go get a milkshake. However, I think a dive bar sounds more fun." No wife/mistress/girlfriend?! Damnit. Robbie eyes her bike for a moment. "Stay." Then she smiles at him. "So Simon, what do you do when not detecting lies?"

It's a sign of the times that Simon finds himself following Robbie's gaze seriously for a moment, as if the bike might not do that in her absence. Animating machines? It wouldn't be the strangest idea he'd ever come across. "UCLA Medical," he answers, simply, while heading down the street toward the place hadn't been sreiously suggesting. First-hand experience coming up!

"What do you do there? Are you like a lab rat or something?" Robbie grins as she moves with him. There is a tip of her head in thought, allowing the fall of her hair to drift to the right side. "Medical and a lie detector? I sort of sense bullshit, maybe I have a talent for it." She smiles at him again. You never forget your first.

"Well, there's a talent for it, and then there's a 'we really should put this on your driver's license' talent." Simon approaches that angle of the topic cautiously; Robbie seems cool with the idea of abilities, but you never know when you'll run into somebody else with an axe to grind. "And no, I'm part of the trauma team— we're the ones the lab rats hate 'cause we drag them out of the break room and stuff. Most of the other departments, they can plan ahead a little."

Robbie looks interested at that. "Part of the trauma team? Are you a nurse?" My sassy gay friend. "Or administration or something?" She moves towards the dive bar without a fear in the world. Hell, these are her people. "Mmmm." She offers this as her eyes fall on one of the classic car dealers. "You should always live your passion, is it your passion?"

"No and no." Keep guessing, Robbie, you'll stumble onto the truth sooner or later. There are only so many five-dollar titles for 'janitor', after all.

The red and blue neon sign proclaiming the existence of 'The Tattle Tale Room' really should have been the first clue. The second was the odor of cigarette smoke in the air, strong enough to crowd out the more common oil-on-asphalt scent common to large parking lots. Simon puts a flattened hand to his eyes, squinting and taking a look around as he adjusts to the light level. Okay, cash register there, Packers game there; so far, so good.

Robbie coughs almost instantly upon entering into the place. "Huh… you take me to the best places, Romeo." She teases lightly as she looks for a table or a booth. "Hmm.. well let's see." She look him up and then down and then up again. "I am going to assume that you are…. a… food worker." Her lips curve a bit higher to that as she looks around the area.

Simon rolls his eyes. "All right, just for that? You're buying the first round. UFCW's been getting shafted something terrible these days." At this, one of the regulars glances up and takes it at face value. "I know, right? Thirty years, and they want to just fire you and bring in some teenager. For the same pay!" The doctor, having already exhausted most of his knowledge about labor unions, just nods vaguely and joins Robbie in looking for somewhere to sit down that hasn't got anything spilled on it already.

Robbie slides right into a booth and lets Simon have the seat across from her. "Here's the deal, I'll make one with you. I will buy the first round if you buy dinner." She looks up at him with a playful challenge in her eyes. "So really, I'm betting you are a doctor, huh Simon?" Her lips curve a bit higher as she sighs. "If I knew they made doctors like you, I might not have sworn against medical school when my father tried to push it."

"I can go for that," replies Simon, "though if we get dinner here, I think we may both end up regretting it." There's a pile of empty pizza boxes near one side of the bar, whatever that means. "So what do you mean 'like me'? And next time you see your dad, tell him you were right— the ones in it for the money are the first ones who get scrubbed. It's either in you or it isn't, you know?"

"Oh I was thinking that I'd buy a drink or two here for you and you would take me somewhere that I can dress up. In fact, I was thinking you could even pick me up in something with doors on it." Robbie looks totally shocked by that idea before she laughs. "Oh you know, charming and good-looking. At the very least amusing." Her light shaded eyes flit towards his left hand at that point and then back up to his eyes.

Simon leans back into the seat on his side, considering. "You mean, change out of leather-and-not-much-else?" And that draws a couple more eyes, if only for a moment before the game on the TV comes back on. It's even got him thinking about using the ability he does have, just in case she wasn't— but no, that would be a bad idea. Unless she invited him to, and even then, not exactly healthy. "'Amusing' I can believe. So what do you do for Firebrand— sales, grease monkeying? Little of both?"

Robbie leans forwards just a bit. "Well I could wear leather or I could wear not much else. It all depends on where you are going to take me doesn't it?" She winks before sitting back. "I think I would say that I do a little bit of both." Her lips curve up a bit more to that as if the question amuses her. "They are the company to get your motorcycle from, we put that OC chopper crap right out of work. It was fun."

There's a tight little smile as that line of hers is revisited and twisted around. Will it come back up later? Time will tell. For now, Simon just shakes his head. "Well, if I ever have a midlife crisis, I'll be sure to look you up. I think I'm due in a few y—"

The crowd of regulars watching the game suddenly erupts in a fit of loud yelling, and not in a good way, either. There was something about 'might as well be the Cowboys', and then there was pushing and shoving, and then a fist was thrown. The victim reels back, blindly approaching Robbie's chosen booth as he attempts to straighten up and return volley.

"You don't look a day over twent.." Robbie's own eyes move towards the staggering man. Here is where bravado fails her. She actually jumps away and further into the booth as the man staggers over. "What in the Sam Hill.." Her eyes move to him and then towards the screen. "You might get to fixing people up, Bugs."

"I hate when I have to bring work home with me," Simon laments, moving further back himself and giving the guy some more room to regain his footing. "Well, as long as they don't start in on the broken bottles—" And, as if on cue, the yelling match still in progress is punctuated by the crash of breaking glass. He just had to say it, didn't he?

Robbie turns to the fight and then towards the man. "You sure you don't have the ability to pick odds or something." Then she hisses. "Fucking idiots.. we might want to try and get out of here. I don't want our first date to be with you stitching me up." Her eyes move to his as if uttering that comment was going to make it happen.

Simon shakes his head. "If I had that one, I'd probably haul out to Atlantic City for a few years, wind up sleeping with the fishes." Even as he talks, he's nodding to Robbie, easing up to his feet and staying close to the wall this time. At least for the moment, the brawl seems contained— no small thanks to the bartender's sawed-off, aimed squarely at the big lout still clutching the neck of the broken bottle in his left hand. He's a mean sumbitch but he's not that fast.

Robbie reaches out for Simon's arm. "Okay, let's get out of here. I know this sort of stand off and it never turns out good for those watching." She sort of ducks behind him as they walk towards the exit.